You’re the one who brought up the term ‘tourist economy.’ Nobody actually made that claim.
Chessic Sense, if there are thousands of people turned away for reasons as ridiculous as this one, then there’s a real problem. If the reasons aren’t usually as ridiculous, then that’s why this story’s different.
Because the story - bogus or true (re: post #92), ties perfectly in with the general trend - partly based on tons of anecdotes, partly based on press like this - of the rest of the world viewing US immigration officers, TSA employees and other security personnel as totally over the top WRT security. And your immigration systems - even for an occasional visitor going back home in a week’s time - are downright hostile. There’s only one country I’ve visited where I’m paranoid about what I say in public places. Guess which. Not even French public servants are as arrogant and hostile as US’, and the new security regulations make more and more non-Americans avoid the USA both as vacation destination and business destination.
That’s why these two are special.
ETA: Or what SciFiSam said.
It would have more sense to send him back for that Toni and Guy/high street haircut.
Auto industry is about 3 to 4 percent for the US. My only statement was that the US is not a tourist economy. For example, let’s talk about your 1.6% drop creating a recession.
In the US, if we were to lose 10% of our international tourism revenues, our overall GDP would fall by about 0.1%, or 1/16 of the amount necessary to cause the type of recssion that you’re referring to.
Whereas, in Greece, that same 10% loss would cause a total GDP loss of 1.5%%, or over 90% of that necessary to create the referred to recssion.
For the Bahamas, that same 10% loss would equal a 6% loss in GDP - enough to create that recession 3 times over and then some.
So, when I say that the US is not a tourist economy, that kind of sums up what I mean.
Perhaps we should enforce a new border policy of full-body cavity search for every employee of DHS entering the UK. And leaving.
As others have said: US border controls are a joke, they are both incompetent and dangerously authoritarian.
The first response made differing with me regarding the importance of tourism in the US was made directly in reponse to my making that claim. But I see your point, so I’ll try to express myself more clearly. My belief is that, relatively speaking, the US is not particularly dependant upon international tourism.
For what it’s worth, I don’t really blame the front-line TSA officers for this kind of thing. I believe it’s a management problem. I don’t believe officers are adequately trained, supervised, or backed up by higher ups.
Which is not really saying very much in this context.
Undoubtedly, major dips in tourism have a serious affect on a nontrivial segment of the U.S. economy, which means Americans get hurt.
Bear in mind that’s a high peak to a low trough - an extreme example. A recession can be half that; so 0.8% not 1.6%.
I’m not really sure what “a tourist economy” means. I don’t think anyone thinks the US is one. We’re saying that tourism money appears to be more important than some folks are portraying it, and that therefore those saying “don’t like it, don’t come here” are being too stridently casual (heh - is that even a term? I know what I mean, and hope it came across correctly) about it.
I don’t think “don’t like it, don’t come here” is even a remotely good idea. I would certainly prefer that tourists come here, although I do honestly feel that there are better places to check out, but different strokes, the grass is greener and all that.
However, when you think about the politics in this country, trying to pit tourism against homleand security is probably a losing battle. Hopefully, most people realzie that Homeland Security was being ridiculous in the case, but the idea that the US would ‘lighten up’ on security or would try to be more “customer friendly” to travelers due to concerns around tourism, when considering the overall state of the nation in terms of immigration, terrorism, etc. - I just don’t think that’s likely - it doesn’t fit the political reality, IMHO.
Now, if we had numbers like Greece or the Bahamas, where tourism was 15% or 60% of the GDP - you can be pretty sure we’d come up with something…
I think it does, when contemplating how much importance different countries are going to place on the impact to tourism when thinking about security procedures. I’m confident that countries that are heavily reliant upon tourism take close consideration of the impact on tourists of their various airport security measures, visa process, etc. It’s my opinion that the US doesn’t place much consdideration upon such items, but that it might if tourism was a larger sector in our economy.
I’m not sure other countries are relevant to the discussion. Sure, the issue might be worse for Greece, or better for Russia; but we’re talking about what would be a prudent course for the US, not for Greece or Russia.
The fact that it might be different elsewhere doesn’t change what’s sensible for the US. And supporting an industry which is 1% of your GDP is sensible.
Uh… no. Only those people who send out electronic messages about destroying America.
I’m not worried that that subset of travelers is not allowed into my country.
The ones who are just joking around with their friends? Are you that spiteful?
No. I’m not interested in spending any time or money to find out if they are “just joking around with their friends”. The vast majority of people in this world don’t joke around with their friends about destroying countries they plan to travel to. If it were a big problem, it might be worth the effort. But I don’t think it’s a big problem. Two knuckleheads don’t get come to the US. BFD.
It’s a BFD because someday someone might try to prevent you from doing something you want to do because of a petty, jocular comment you might have made at some point in your life.
Everyone’s a knucklehead once in a while, so we should treat all knuckleheads with some degree of sympathy and rationality.
Are you entirely sure about that? It seems to me that gallows humor is quite common, especially among young people, and rather innocuous.
And what about their claim that “destroy” is their slang for “party in”?
What part of “it’s a different dialect - it means to party” did you not understand? Nobody joked about destroying America.
If you have a problem with that phrase, take it up with the poster I quoted it from. It wasn’t my phrase.
Huh? You are “John Mace” aren’t you?
Or am I in a parallel dimension? You goatee-wearing mirror universe twin?
A joke? Incompetent? The same people that seize 1.6 million kilos of drugs per year are a joke?
Again, what does TSA have to do with it?
Again, you seem to think that refusing entry is some rare event that barely ever happens. Every country does it all the time. If you think getting into the U.S. is hard, you should look up Turkey’s practices. Hell, I remember Canada giving Americans a hard time because the border agents were in a labor negotiation at the time.